Blog

Letter to our Members December 2018

Thank you for your incredible patience and understanding as we’ve been working on some significant and very exciting improvements with a new year on the horizon. After many months of diligent re-formulating, planning, and hard work, we are finally ready to launch our new website to you and all of Northeast Wisconsin!

I’ll be very honest in admitting that it’s been challenging to bring this endeavor to reality and there have been more than a few roadblocks. As many of you know, arts funding is difficult to obtain and both public and private resources are slim in our current climate. There have been times when it’s felt rather daunting to create and sustain the value envisioned as one person running what is primarily a labor of love for the arts and each of you. Thankfully, persistence and passion have kept the fires lit.

After a great amount of reflection, I realized that while founder and leader of NEWAA, I’m not doing this alone. All of you are right here with me, bringing to life that for which we are all passionate about elevating and celebrating! As NEWAA serves as a portal and hub for visibility and discovery, each of you cultivates the elemental connective tissue.

As your unwavering champion, ambassador, and friend, I’m here to uplift and encourage you. My sincere desire is to bring creatives of all types out of hiding so people can discover you and provide opportunities and resources which help you thrive as artists, teachers and arts providers.

With tremendous personal investment along with the help of valuable mentors, trusted business advisors, and the advice of respected community leaders who share my passion for elevating the arts in Northeast Wisconsin, a new vision is in motion. Recently rebranded as a social enterprise, NEWAA is focused on addressing unmet need in our local arts and culture ecosystem.

NEWAA has now made it possible to provide Members with a dynamic, engaging, and evolving presence on our newly designed site. With invaluable assistance from CairnTek, our new website developer and sponsor – THANK YOU, Daniel Morell! - we are thrilled to unveil an evocative, results-oriented platform with fresh, captivating aesthetics.

Beyond visual appeal and seamless navigation, cutting-edge technology is built in, implementing proven search engine optimization (SEO). These methods will bring about measurable site hits, page views, and multi-sensory engagement. Relationship-building opportunities while fueling the desire for continuous discovery about the arts in our community are integral to our new site’s design.

Moving forward, all Members will benefit from having your own custom, branded resource page with bio/artist statement, direct links to your website, social channels, visuals, video, audio, events, and related content. You will also now have the ability to update your listing as you wish with fresh content. What’s more, visitors to the site will be able to directly message you on your page, provide testimonials, and share what they love on their own channels!

What was previously referred to as a Premier Membership will now be the standard offering for all new Members. (Basic Memberships will be grandfathered in until annual cycle expires.) Resource page templates have been re-designed to provide you with a full virtual portfolio while giving website guests all the discovery elements they might desire. Anything less would not offer the full marketing and promotion value which NEWAA aims to provide all of our Members.

Note also that anyone who joined NEWAA since April (when the old website went into static mode and new construction began) will have their annual membership cycle commence on January 1, 2019. Those of you who were up for annual renewal of your membership between July 2018 and December 2018 won’t be billed for a new year until March 2019. An email will be sent to you when it’s time to renew. These extra free months are offered as thanks for your patience during the rebuild phase which took longer than originally anticipated. We hope you will be delighted at the improvements and stick around to realize the benefits!

Gratitude abounds for each of you sharing your creative gifts and making Northeast Wisconsin a great place to live, work, learn and play. Through the profound power of art, we are here to share diverse ways to express, communicate, connect, heal, uplift, and foster understanding about life and each other. Art is a gift and so are each of you. Thank you for being here.

Here is the link to our new domain and site: www.newaa.org. Attached is a membership form for you to fill out with all the fields – some interactive, some static – available to your page. Apologies if you’ve forwarded some of this information in the past. This new content capture method will ensure your listings are both accurate and up-to-date, so please fill yours out and return to us promptly.

As soon as we receive your form back your listing will be added to the website and will be searchable by visitors. This is your chance to define yourself as an artist or organization, show off your best work, and bridge connections with fans, customers, patrons, event organizers, and other creatives. Give us the best you’ve got and you’ll get the same back from NEWAA.